CHAPTER XXXII
A SHOT IN THE HILLS
The two men sat in the great bare room of the House at Setchevo and watched the ebbing firelight as it played upon the dead man's face and declared the horror of it. Not a sound came to them but that of their heavy breathing. They feared almost to raise a hand lest by any movement the living should be called to avenge the dead. Just as he had fallen, heavily and in anger, so the old Chevalier lay, his face upturned, the sightless eyes still open as though gazing now upon the eternal mysteries. And none knew better than Gavin Ord that death might be their worst enemy, loosing upon them the worst passions of their jailers and forbidding them any longer even to hope.
This he knew, and yet there came no profit of the knowledge. If he feared death, it was for Evelyn's sake. Sitting there by the firelight, waiting in tense doubt for the coming of the dead man's friends, he could recall a picture of Evelyn as first he saw her in the hall of the Manor. How stately she was; with what dignity she had received him! And what an odd mental hallucination he had suffered when he thought to hear her crying to him from the river. But was it altogether an hallucination and did this explanation satisfy? Here, to-night, it seemed that he must die because of his friendship for her. How foolish, then, the call from the unseen world had been if its meaning were so, and his own death had been the subject of the prophecy! That he could not believe. The firm idea that he had been chosen to love and befriend this beautiful girl remained his own even in this momentous hour. He must suffer this to save her—how or by what means he did not pretend to say—nor would he account death as other than a friend if by death salvation came to one who alone among women had taught him to say, "I love."
A wolf howled upon the hills without and the lingering, doleful cry, taken up by a thousand lifted throats, came upon the silence as the dead man's requiem. Arthur Kenyon shivered when he heard it and beat the fire down as though darkness were preferable to this aureole upon the staring face. When Gavin said "Hush," and bade him listen, he half turned, upon an impulse, toward the dead man as though the dead were about to speak. The terrible strain of that suspense had become insupportable. What mattered it since the end must be the same—sooner or later, to-night or to-morrow, the reckoning, the vengeance? He was young, and life might have much in store for him; but travel had taught him to say "Kismet" and he said it unflinchingly.
"There would be snow on the hills," he cried at last, as though his thoughts were out there upon the lonely mountain road.
Gavin, for answer, gripped him by the arm and forced him to listen.
"Do you not hear!" he cried in a broken whisper; "some one is calling the Chevalier?"
They bent together as though to hear more keenly. In the courtyard without, footsteps could now be heard and a voice crying, "Master, master!" The hour had come then! Here were those who sought them.
"Will you speak to them, Gavin?"
"Hush for God's sake—I must think, think——"
"That's a second footstep—can't you hear it? My God, Gavin, what shall we do?"
"Let me think, Arthur, let me think."
He buried his face in his hands and could feel his temples throbbing. For Evelyn's sake, for her—ah, if that miracle of love could but come to pass! To open the gates, to defy the perils of the hills, to pass as in flight by towns, rivers, cities, the abodes of men, the lonely passes, the lights of towns, the storms of seas, to venture all for Evelyn's sake. If it could be that? The voice of reason answered, "Fool, the men are at the door."
He rose excitedly from his chair and gripped his friend by the arm.
"Tap the pavement," he said, "tap as the old Chevalier used to. I must think, Arthur—for God's sake now tap with the stick."
Kenyon obeyed him as a child would have done. He tapped upon the stone floor with the stick but did not speak a word. Gavin had him by the arm now and appeared almost as one in a trance. His eyes were half-closed; he muttered to himself, stretching out his hand and feeling, as it were, for a path which the darkness would disclose to him. And the word upon his lips was "Evelyn"—oft repeated, as though she were near and did not hear him.
"What are you going to do, Gavin?"
"To lead you from this house, Arthur—do not speak to me; some one is calling us, Arthur."
He passed out into the bare stone corridor leading to the banqueting hall. From the shadows one of the gypsies appeared with the swiftness of an apparition. He carried a lantern in his hand and lifted it while he spoke.
"Master!" he cried, and then reeled back, the words broken upon his lips.
They passed him by, leaving him cowering by the wall; he did not cry after them or raise an alarm. And Gavin went on swiftly, still toward the gate, as though his will would open it.
"No man could cross the hill road to-night," Kenyon said presently. He was thinking that if they passed the gates, their allies would be the wolves. Gavin did not answer him at all this time. He had come to the gate by which you reach the courtyard, and, lifting the latch, he went out unquestioned.
"You see," he said, "that fellow has just unlocked it. I knew it must be so, Arthur."
"He has gone to bring the others, Gavin."
"They will not hear him. Or if they come, they will be powerless to harm us, Arthur. It must be so. I hear Evelyn's voice. She would not call me if the gates were shut."
Kenyon knew not what to say. Once or twice before he had known and seen Gavin in such a mood as this, led by unseen hands and speaking with another's voice. Never had he scoffed at it or misunderstood his friend. He took it to be a force within that was beyond his own experience. To-night, at least, it had led them out of the death-chamber to look once more upon the heaven of stars above.
"I will follow wherever you lead, Gavin," he said in a whisper, "only tell me what I must do."
"We are going to the bridge, Arthur. Tap as the old Chevalier did. I shall cry 'Open!' when we come there. They will let us out and we shall cross the mountains."
The idea in his head remained there ineradicably. Despite the horde of gypsies that was concealed somewhere in the darkened rooms of that weird house, Gavin pushed his way toward the portcullis and demanded that the keeper should open to him. This was the first time he had spoken aloud since he quitted the room where the dead man lay; and instantly at his words the courtyard became alive with the murmur of voices and the sounds of shuffling footsteps.
"Quick, Gavin, they are after us," Kenyon cried, holding his friend's arm and trying to draw him aside to a place of safety.
Gavin would not move, however. Imitating, as well as he could, the voice he had heard so often challenging the keeper of the bridge, he continued to shout, "Open—I wait!" None the less, he knew that armed men were all about him and that any moment might bring them at his throat.
"Open—I wait!"
The gate-keeper, awakened from a heavy sleep, came from the rude watch-tower above the bridge and stood there with a lantern in his hand. Raising it he looked upon the faces of the men, and drew back with hand uplifted.
"Why do you call to me in my master's voice?" he asked.
They could not answer him. A great shouting in the courtyard behind them warned them that the truth was known. The gypsies had discovered the dead man's body and pell-mell they began to swarm about those they believed to be his assassins. Haggard, in the weird light, their figures in phantom shapes, they pressed on, searching every nook and cranny with the naked blade of sword and scimitar, wailing their doleful lament and encouraging one another to the pursuit. Nor had Gavin any belief that he could escape them. Called by the peril from the unnatural trance which had fallen upon him, he swung round upon his heel as though to protect his friend whose life he had thus jeopardized; but in his heart he believed that nothing could save them. This was the moment when the uttermost penalty of folly must be paid. It found him ready with a dogged courage, but lacking all ideas except that supreme determination too fight for his life to the end.
"Give me the bludgeon, Arthur—I am the stronger."
"Don't think of that—there's something left in my locker still. Side by side, old chap, unto the end. What luck! We'd have been across the bridge in another ten seconds."
"Some of them are going to remember us anyway. Stand close to me, Arthur—it won't be long now."
Indeed one of the gypsies discovered him as he spoke and with a loud cry to the others made known his news. The horde swept on with the ferocity of wolves. Knives gleaming, eyes bright in the darkness, some voices cursing, some howling in brutish anger, they came pell-mell toward the gate. And then, as suddenly, they halted and a silence as of the dead of night fell upon the house.
Some one upon the mountain road without had fired a rifle. The report of it, echoing in the lonely hills, was like a sharp peal of thunder, rattling from peak to peak with monstrous sounds near by and low rumblings far away. To the gypsies it spoke a message which they alone understood. They stood altogether, shivering and gibbering in the darkness. Their muttered words were unintelligible to Gavin. Beyond the sound of the rifle-shot he could hear nothing—or when the silence was broken again, it was by the tongue of wolves indescribably haunting and long drawn as a dirge of woe.
"There is some one on the mountain road and they are afraid of him," he said quickly to Kenyon.
The idea of profit to come by the truce occurred to him in the same breath; and, crying loudly, again he bade the doorkeeper to open.
"Open, open!"
Twenty voices took up the cry. The gypsies vied with each other in shouting the summons. For they understood the signal. The rope was about their own necks, they said. The last chance was to open the gate to their prisoners. When the doorkeeper hesitated, trembling and afraid, they stabbed him to the heart and he rolled headlong to the foot of the bridge near by which his life had been lived.
But Gavin and Arthur Kenyon passed out to the mountain road, and looking down to the valley they perceived the flame of bivouac fires in the wood below; and they understood immediately that cavalry had been sent from Bukharest to their aid and that the hour of their peril had passed.